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The day 12 bowlers were used in a First-Class match

There has been a division of opinion amongst cricket historians and statisticians regarding the “official” status of some of the great early cricket matches, played principally in England.

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Alfred Lyttelton was introduced as No. 11 when all 12 men bowled for the only time in a First-Class match. Later, he would be introduced as No. 10 when all 11 men would bowl in a Test for the first time © Wikimedia
Alfred Lyttelton was introduced as No. 11 when all 12 men bowled for the only time in a First-Class match. Later, he would bowl as No. 10 when all 11 men would bowl in a Test for the first time. Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

There has been a division of opinion amongst cricket historians and statisticians regarding the “official” status of some of the great early cricket matches, played principally in England. It has always been a contentious issue not easily amenable to a general reconciliation. Although there was a meeting held at Lord’s in May 1894 between the MCC committee and the secretaries of the cricket clubs involved in the County Championships which had been officially launched in 1890, and which had laid down some broad guidelines of the criteria of what should constitute a First-Class match, the issue was far from being clearly resolved. Two important criteria in the list were the number of players allowed per team (prescribed as 11) and the duration of the game (prescribed as being a minimum of 3 days).

One important topic that remained unresolved was: what about the important matches played before that time? The MCC ruling in 1894 and the ICC ruling of May 1947 were both reluctant to accept any retrospective attribution of First-Class status to the earlier matches. On the other hand, various illustrious cricket statisticians have expressed divergent individual opinions on this issue at different times.

According to the views of the popularly accepted internet-based archives of Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (ACS), the earliest recognized First-Class match was the game between Hampshire and All-England at Broadhalfpenny Down on June 24 and 25, 1772.

It is with this brief background that we begin our present story.

As all followers of cricket statistics are aware, there have been 4 instances in Test cricket when all 11 players of a team have been called upon to bowl. Let us examine this list in chronological order:

1. 3rd Test, England vs Australia at The Oval, August 1884

In the Australia 1st innings of 551 in 311 4-ball overs, the top-scorers were captain Billy Murdoch (211 — the first double-century in Test history), Percy McDonnell (103), and Henry Scott (102). England captain, the Kent stalwart Lord Harris, tried everything he could to curb the flow of runs, but to no avail. In desperation, he advised his wicketkeeper Alfred Lyttelton to take off his pads and to turn his arm over (‘under’ should be a better word here, since he bowled lobs).

Lyttelton bowled 12 overs in 2 spells, Walter Read taking on the wicket keeping duties during the first short spell (of 1 unsuccessful over) and WG Grace doing the honours in the longer spell. By a strange quirk of fate, WG took a catch with his first touch of the ball in wicketkeeping gloves in Test cricket, catching the controversial Billy Midwinter off the bowling of the designated wicketkeeper, who had the best bowling figures, 4 for 19 in 12 overs in the innings. No. 11 in the bowling sequence was the incomparable batsman, Arthur Shrewsbury, who bowled 3 overs for no wickets.

2. 2nd Test, Pakistan vs Australia at Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad, March 1980

In the Pakistan second innings of 382 for 2 in 126 overs, Australian captain Greg Chappell felt the need to involve all 11 players at the bowling crease, as Pakistan wicketkeeper Taslim Arif, opening the innings, scored 210 not out, his maiden Test century, staying on the field of play for the entire duration of the match; Javed Miandad chipped in with 106 not out as well.

Australia wicketkeeper Rod Marsh sent down 10 overs, conceding 51 runs for no wickets, and Graham Yallop, No. 11 in the bowling sequence, bowled 3 overs, conceding 15 runs for no wickets. Kadri: 1st to score a ton in each innings of a Ranji match

3. 4th Test, West Indies vs India at Recreation Ground, St. John’s, May 2002

This was an interesting Test in which, for the first time, both the wicketkeepers, Ajay Ratra (115 not out in India’s 513 for 9) and Ridley Jacobs (118 in West Indies’ 629 for 9) scored centuries. India captain Sourav Ganguly pressed all 11 men into the attack in the West Indies innings. Ratra, No. 11 in the bowling sequence turned his arm over for an over while Rahul Dravid kept wickets.

4. 4th Test, West Indies vs South Africa at Recreation Ground, St. John’s, May 2005

In the West Indies 1st-innings of 747 in 235.2 overs, South African captain Graeme Smith felt obliged to employ all 11 players in bowling duties. Wicketkeeper Mark Boucher, No. 10 in the sequence (Herschelle Gibbs was No. 11), finished off the innings with the wicket of Dwayne Bravo (107). AB de Villiers kept wickets when Boucher bowled. This Test set a new record with 8 individual centuries.

Apart from the above-mentioned Tests (as Tests satisfy all the criteria for First-Class games), the archives show 54 other First-Class games where all 11 players of a team have bowled. Of these, the following 3 games have been played in India till date:

1. Ranji Trophy 1988-89 (South Zone), Goa vs Tamil Nadu, Panaji

In the Tamil Nadu 1st innings of 912 for 6, the only innings on record with 2 triple-centuries (WV Raman — 313 and Arjan Kripal Singh — 302 not out), Goa used 11 bowlers.

2. Ranji Trophy 2000-01 (Pre-Quarter-Finals), Maharashtra vs Railways, Pune

In the Railways 2nd innings of 656/5, Maharashtra used 11 bowlers.

3. Ranji Trophy 2008-09 (Elite Group A), Saurashtra vs Punjab, Rajkot

In the Saurashtra 1st innings of 679 for 8, Punjab employed all 11 players as bowler.

All this brings us to the strangest game of all where all the players of a team have been used as bowlers in an innings of a supposedly First-Class match.

Monday, May 24, 1880. The Gentlemen of England had made the journey to Cambridge to engage the undergraduates in a 3-day game at the picturesque FP Fenner’s Ground. As was the custom of the time, they would be paying 4-ball overs. However, there was a catch: it was to be a 12-a-side game, although classified as First-Class.

The contemporary weather report for Great Britain for the spring/summer of 1880 read as follows: “A fine spring / summer across Britain. The summer is noted in contemporary reports as being ‘hot’. The harvest was finished early.”

With the sun on his back, then, Charles Thornton, captain of the Gentlemen of England, won the toss and decided to take first strike. Lyttelton, a Barrister of the Inner Temple, and one of 7 cricketing brothers, produced an innings of 67 at the top of the order and Frank Penn made 88 at No. 4, passing the landmark of 3,500 First-Class runs in the process. The 1st-innings total for Gentlemen of England read 232. Two undergraduate bowlers share all 11 wickets — captain Allan ‘AG’ Steel (5 for 78) and Philip Morton (6 for 80). So far, one might have been inclined to think, things did not appear to be anything out of the ordinary. But that was to change soon.

The strong undergraduate team then “got stuck”, as the saying goes, into the bowling with punishing intent. The final score read 593 from 337.1 4-ball overs. Ivo Bligh, later the Earl of Darnley who would famously take an England team to Australia and be presented with the legendary urn containing “The Ashes” by a local schoolteacher whom he subsequently married, scored 90, opening the innings. The other opener, Herbert Whitfield, contributed 116, his maiden First-Class century. Not to be outdone, the No. 3 batsman, Richard Jones, enjoyed an innings of 124, also a maiden First-Class century also. And so it went, all the batsmen, barring Nos. 11 and 12, who made 2 runs each, getting into at least double-figures.

Faced with this unexpected assault on the bowling, Thornton soon felt the situation going out of hand. One player after another was called upon to bowl until the captain had completely exhausted all his resources and all 12 men at his command had turned their individual arms over. The bowling card, absolutely one of its kind in the history of First-Class cricket, is worth looking at:

No. Player O M R W NB Wd
1 David Buchanan 123 50 146 5
2 Hugh Rotherham 74 28 153 0 6
3 James Robertson 63.1 20 124 4 1
4 Alexander Webbe (wk) 18 8 28 0
5 Isaac Walker 13 5 18 0
6 Charles Thornton (c) 5 4 1 1
7 Frederick Fryer 13 1 32 0
8 Arthur Heath 4 1 13 0
9 Frank Penn 10 4 20 0
10 Reginald Hargreaves 2 0 9 0
11 Alfred Lyttelton 7 3 6 0 1
12 George Vernon 5 1 11 1

Note: Webbe, the wicketkeeper, was introduced as early as No. 4 in the attack.

Well, when the dust had settled down, and the tired bowlers had mopped their sweating brows in the hot weather, the match ended tamely in a draw. This match, however, remains a unique and an inexplicable episode in the rich history of First-Class cricket to this day.

Brief scores:

Gentlemen of England 232 (Alfred Lyttelton 67, Frank Penn 88; ‘AG’ Steel 5 for 78, Philip Morton 6 for 80) drew with Cambridge University 593 (Ivo Bligh 90, Herbert Whitfield 116, Richard Jones 124, AG Steel 56, Oswald Lancashire 60; David Buchanan 5 for 146, James Robertson 4 for 124).

(Pradip Dhole is a retired medical doctor with a life-long interest in cricket history and statistics)

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